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IN HONOR OF 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 4j9_ 

6<36 



A MEETING OF THE INDIANA 
STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION 
HELD IN TOMLINSON HALL IN 
INDIANAPOLIS DECEMBER THE 
TWENTY-EIGHTH NINETEEN 
HUNDRED AND FIVE 



With a Brief Sketch of the Life 
of 

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright 1906 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company 



Published, April 



■If 



MAY 7 1906 

SSI ^° 6 



Grateful acknowledgment is made by the 
publishers to Edwin Holt Hughes, Albert J. 
Beveridge, Charles R. Williams, Meredith 
Nicholson and Henry Watterson for permis- 
sion to reprint their addresses; to Mrs. Hugh 
McGibeny for the music used in her readings; 
and to James Whitcomb Riley for the text of 
his response to the greetings of the teachers 
and for his valuable suggestions. 



EXPLANATORY PREFACE 

Shortly after the election of the writer as 
President of the Indiana State Teachers' As- 
sociation, he conferred with Mr. B. F. Moore, 
Superintendent of Schools at Marion, and 
Chairman of the Executive Committee, with 
reference to the programme to be presented at 
the meeting in December, 1905. We agreed 
that in some way Mr. James Whitcomb Riley 
should be brought before the teachers of the 
state. We well knew that our good poet 
could not be moved by ordinary consider- 
ations, and that we must appeal to him on 
high grounds if we would secure his pres- 
ence at one of our gatherings. We felt that 
for long the teachers of Indiana had been 
familiar with Mr. Riley's poems, and that 
they would be helped by contact with the poet 
himself. We, therefore, urged Mr. Riley to 
allow us to plan some form of tribute at one 
of the sessions of the Association. He had 
misgivings: such a meeting among his close 
friends would be embarrassing; and such a 
meeting in honor of one living and present 
1 



EXPLANATORY PREFACE 

might by some be deemed indelicate. We as- 
sured him that the inevitable self-conscious- 
ness and embarrassment would be worth while 
in view of the object and in connection with 
the genuineness of the tribute, and that the 
officers of the State Association would be care- 
ful to explain that his relation to the occasion 
had been won by our insistence and was rep- 
resented only by a modest consent. 

We then proceeded with our plans. It soon 
became plain that the meeting would take on 
large proportions. Great men, whose hours 
command vast honorariums, were glad to aid 
us without remuneration and for the love they 
bore Mr. Riley. The session was carried to 
Tomlinson Hall, with the conviction that even 
the immensity of that auditorium would not 
be sufficient to hold all who would eagerly 
join in tribute. The following programme and 
the printed addresses will show something of 
what that tribute was. But these pages can 
not fully reveal the mood of the meeting — 
the thought and feeling of four thousand 
people fused into unity. The gathering was 
unique and unparalleled. The hour was full 
of warmth and truth. 

The gratitude of the Indiana State Teach- 
2 



EXPLANATORY PREFACE 

ers* Association is due to those who partici- 
pated in the exercises; it is especially due 
to Mr. Riley for permitting the educational 
forces of the state to be the auspices under 
which such a noteworthy and dignified tribute 
was conveyed to himself. 

Edwin Holt Hughes. 
DePauw University, 

January 1, 1906. 



PROGRAMME 

Music — Manual Training High School Orchestra 

Introductory Address — Dr. Edwin Holt Hughes, 
President Indiana State Teachers' Association 

Address by Chairman of the Afternoon— Senator 
Albert J. Beveridge 

Music — Vocal Solo: "Onaway! Awake, Beloved" 
(from Hiawatha Wedding Feast), S. Coleridge 
Taylor — Mr. Orville Harold, Muncie 

Address — Mr. Charles R. Williams, editor Indian- 
apolis News 

Music — Solo — Mrs. Thomas C. Whallon, Indian- 
apolis 

Address — Mr. Meredith Nicholson, Indianapolis 

Musical Monologue — (a) There, Little Girl, Don't 
Cry; (6) Out to Old Aunt Marys— Mrs. Hugh 
McGibeny, Indianapolis 

Address — Honorable Henry Watterson, editor 
Louisville Courier-Journal 

Mr. Riley will be present and respond to the greet- 
ings of the teachers 




B. P. MOORE 

CHAIRMAN* RXBCUT1Y1 CO.M.MI I I hi. 



INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS BY 
EDWIN HOLT HUGHES 

President of DePauw University and President of the 
Indiana State Teachers' Association 

Ladies and Gentlemen — Mr. Riley is fre- 
quently called upon to appear before celeb- 
rities. Last week he was with President 
Roosevelt; this week he is with the Indiana 
teachers. Judge for yourselves whether this 
is a climax. It is only proper for me to report 
that there is in this meeting but one unwilling 
guest. Musicians have canceled recitals and 
dismissed pupils that they themselves might 
add melody to eulogy. Senators have been 
glad to leave duties, and even political love- 
feasts, in order to be here. Authors have 
eagerly dropped their quills that they might 
in living presence pay tribute to their brother. 
Editors have abandoned the press of their 
work and will give other editors a chance to 
print what they have to say about a former 
newspaper man. And you who are not on this 
programme have counted yourselves fortunate 
to find room anywhere in this vast hall. And 
yet there is here one graciously unwilling 
5 



ADDRESS BY 

guest; and that is Mr. Riley himself. In 
many years the Indiana State Teachers* Asso- 
ciation has tried to give him public honor; it 
is the crowning achievement of the present 
administration that we have succeeded. By 
dint of earnest solicitation, of prose coaxings 
interspersed with poetic pleadings, we have at 
last secured his reluctant presence and have 
brought him hither as the modest center of 
this singular hour. 

We may well say "singular", for it is to be 
doubted whether this gathering could have its 
like anywhere else in our broad land. In what 
other state could a poet be found to whom the 
educational forces would bring such honor as 
this? It only goes to show that Mr. Riley 
himself is a "Poem Here at Home/' — beloved 
even as his verse is beloved. The nearer you 
get to Lockerbie Street, the better he is loved, 
while those who enter the doors of his home 
fall under the spell of his heart and come out 
to see always thereafter the kindly face of the 
living poet upon the printed page. 

We have long called James Whitcomb Riley 

"The Hoosier Poet," and we do not intend to 

surrender the title that signifies our loving 

ownership. He has his place in the Library 

a 




r 



% 



EDWIN HOLT HUGHES 

of the World's Best Literature. If he had 
not had his place there, the agents could not 
have sold a single set anywhere from South 
Bend to Madison, or from Union City to 
Terre Haute ! Indeed, no man can possibly 
succeed in Indiana who does not like Whit- 
comb Riley's poems ! The pickets on our state 
lines halt every new-comer and demand the 
countersign. If he whispers "Riley," we let 
him in; if . I, we deem him a hopeless alien 
and send him away because he has not the 
proper papers of Indiana naturalization. 

But while we claim James Whitcomb Riley 
as ours by first discovery and by first love, we 
gladly recognize his power to enter sympa- 
thetically into the lives that are distant from 
his own both in experience and in geography. 
In truth, this is the wonderful power of our 
poet. We may well understand how the mem- 
ory of his own youth could make him the 
greatest living poet of childhood. But how 
could a bachelor write An Old Sweetheart of 
Mine? How could a man, who never had a 
wife to be absent from him, write that poem 
which some of you have slipped into letters 
to your distant and delaying spouses, and 
which is entitled When She Comes Home? 



ADDRESS BY 

And how could one who had never known 
parental grief over the death of an only child 
write that sweet, low song of comfort called 
Bereaved? It is safe to say that much of 
the power of our friend's poetry lies in that 
strange, penetrating sympathy, — seen now in 
humor and now in pathos. 

Plainly that quality foreordained that we- 
could not always keep Whitcomb Riley within 
our borders alone. Glad as we are to claim 
him as ours in birth, in spirit and in love, we 
may well remind ourselves that the time is 
long passed when one state could claim him as 
its exclusive property. Therefore, we have in- 
vited here to-day a distinguished citizen of 
another state, — and, even though he lives only 
a few inches beyond the line, of another sec- 
tion, — to signify that our poet is now the 
nation's poet. 

For, after all, we Indianians are not so ex- 
treme in our peculiarities that the things that 
reach us deeply are of no effect with folk 
in other parts. We are blessed with character- 
istics. We have no desire to be colorless. But 
we never cease to be "human bein's." Mr. 
Riley sometimes speaks in dialect; but he 
speaks, also, in such language of loving in- 
8 



EDWIN HOLT HUGHES 

sight that the universal heart says : How hear 
we every man in our own tongue, wherein 
we were born? Because he appeals to In- 
dianians he appeals to men and women every- 
where. Because he is The Hoosier Poet he is 
likewise The Human Poet. Since we have all 
felt the brotherhood of his verse, we are here 
to love him to his very face. 

Ladies and gentlemen, in the name of the 
State Teachers' Association I greet you all. 
We have chosen our senior senator as the 
chairman of the afternoon and as our first 
speaker. It is my honor to introduce to you 
now the Honorable Albert J. Beveridge, 
whose right in this hour is based not alone on 
his own great ability, nor yet on his high 
office, but likewise on his warm friendship for 
James Whitcomb Riley. 



ADDRESS BY 
ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

United States Senator from Indiana 

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen — 
It would seem that Indiana and the Middle 
West, the center of the republic geograph- 
ically, the center of the republic numerically, 
is becoming the center of the republic intel- 
lectually. Only in America could the center 
of culture follow close on the heels of the 
moving center of population; because only in 
America is learning equally distributed among 
the people, so that where the center of popu- 
lation is, the center of intelligence must be. 

At any rate Indiana at this hour is giving 
more creative literature to the English-speak- 
ing world than any single portion of the 
republic. Charles Major, the American Du- 
mas; Meredith Nicholson, our latter-day 
Hawthorne; George Ade and Nesbit and 
McCutcheon, whose true humor sets the land 
aglee; Booth Tarkington, whose genius ex- 
presses itself in the most finished art of any 
contemporaneous novelist; David Graham 
Phillips, whose savage force and masterful- 
10 




www 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

ness are elemental and epochal — all these and 
more are-children of Indiana. 

And dean of all, first of all and dearest of 
all is that American Burns, whom Indiana has 
given to the nation — James Whitcomb Riley. 
I say given by Indiana to the nation; for all 
that Indiana has and is belongs to the repub- 
lic as a whole. And, besides, our joy and 
pride in this master singer of the people is too 
great to be provincial. Only the heart of the 
nation is great enough to share and hold it. 

Dearer to the universal man than soldier, 
statesman or scholar are the world's poets; for 
the poet interprets the soul of man to itself 
and makes immortal the wisdom of the com- 
mon mind. After all, the source of all poetry 
is in the hearts of the people. In the con- 
sciousness of the masses is that intelligence 
of the higher truths of the universe, of which 
this life is but a reflection ; and it is this intel- 
ligence, uttered in words of music, that consti- 
tutes real poetry. 

So he who knows not the people nor loves 
them can not sing that song to which their 
very natures are attuned. The aristocrat may 
make verses whose perfect art renders them 
immortal like Horace, or state high truths in 
ll 



ADDRESS BY 

austere beauty like Arnold. But only the 
brother of the common man can tell what the 
common heart longs for and feels, and only he 
lives in the understanding and affection of the 
millions. Only the man who is close to the 
earth and, therefore, close to the skies, knows 
the mysteries and beauties of both. Only he 
who is close to humanity is close to humanity's 
God. 

That is why the true poet is so dear to the 
man in the furrow and the street — he listens 
and hears a voice of beauty singing the very 
thoughts his locked lips have not uttered and 
the yearnings that have filled him always. 
The poet is our soul's interpreter, voice of our 
spirit, evangel of our higher and our real life, 
utterer of the prophecy which God has 
planted in our breasts. 

The poet of the people is a part of the 
people, and their better part ; and that is why 
the people love him. That is why we love 
James Whitcomb Riley. He has understood 
us — understood us because he is of us; and, 
understanding us, has told us of ourselves, of 
our ideal selves, and therefore of our truly 
real selves. For only that is real in the soul 
of man which, to the mind of man, is ideal. 
12 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

That is why the poet of the people becomes 
the poet universal. He gives that touch of 
nature that makes the whole world kin. 
Everybody knows Burns. His verse has gone 
into our common speech. We quote him with- 
out knowing it. Burns is human and says 
things we understand and things we need. 
Omar Khayyam's song of poise and resigna- 
tion rises above the clattering footfalls of the 
centuries, and the modern world is listening to 
him now. 

Riley is of this quality. He is the senti- 
ment and wisdom of the universal common 
man, stated in terms of Americanism. There 
is something in him of Burns and something 
of the Tentmaker and a dash of Villon, and 
yet all Riley, all original, all born of our own 
home soil — every atom pure Indiana Ameri- 
can. 

What I like most in Riley is his sympathy 
with everybody and everything that needs or 
deserves it. The best things in Burns are his 
songs to a homeless mouse and a mountain 
daisy crushed beneath his plow. Riley is full 
of that same thing. He sympathizes with an 
old horse turned out to pasture. 

Sympathy is the divinest faculty of man. 

13 



ADDRESS BY 

It is a suggestion of Heaven. It sweetens 
misfortune and makes adversity smile. Toil 
turns to play beneath sympathy's touch, and 
the thorns of difficultv bear roses. There is 
nothing so fine as that friendliness of soul 
that knows and understands the sorrows, 
troubles, temptations, joys, hopes, aspirations 
and all the emotions of other souls. 

Nothing is so splendid as to love things. 
These are qualities of the common people and 
the quiet homes. These qualities do not live 
in rich abodes — exclusiveness starves them. 
They are qualities growing out of the soil, 
and so out of the heart of God. 

Take all your fine statements of high truths, 
but leave me the living speech of human sym- 
pathy. That is Riley's kind of speech. He is 
so full of it that it masters him and makes 
him write it out in poetry. That is how we 
have Griggsby's Station and Nothin' to Say 
and The Old Band and Lockerbie Street, and 
that very tenderest of all his lines expressing 
a new idea in literature — the sorrow of a 
childless one, who at heart and in longing and 
in loving capacity is a parent, for the real 
parent over the loss of a real child : 



14 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

Let me come in where you sit weeping, — aye, 
Let me, who have not any child to die, 
Weep with you for the little one whose love 
I have known nothing of. 

We have these and a hundred others like them, 
and thank God for them, and so thank God 
for Jim Riley. 

Riley is more the poet of the people than 
Burns was in this: he is the poet of the chil- 
dren. The plain people love children more 
than all things else. Only God and country 
are dearer to the common heart than the in- 
fant race growing up to take our place when, 
like old trees, we shall fall at last. Children 
are visible immortality. The beauty of youth 
is the loveliest thing in human life; and in the 
heart of childhood abides the future. 

The common people know children and un- 
derstand them; and so does Riley. Shelley's 
genius arranged brilliant words and amazing 
thoughts, but he never got as near to the hu- 
man heart as the man who wrote Fool Young- 
ens and Old Man Whisk ery-W hee-Kum- 
Wheeze or The Raggedy Man. I would 
rather be the interpreter of childhood than to 
be the author of Manfred. What said the sa- 

15 



ADDRESS BY 

cred Word — Except ye become as little chil- 
dren ye shall not enter into the kingdom of 
heaven, 

Riley speaks our tongue. His words are the 
language of the people. He is the interpreter 
of the common heart. That is why he is so 
full of that sane fatalism called resignation — 
submission to the eternal forces of whom he 
would make friends, not enemies. 

When God sorts out the weather and sends 
rain, 

Wy, rain's my choice, 

— says Riley, echoing the man of the fields, 
who, like Riley, would a good deal rather be 
"Knee Deep in June." 

But this voice of our ordinary American 
millions utters the depths of our soul and 
searches the heights of our faith when he tells 
of our trust in and reliance on the good God 
who, we know, with the wisdom of the heart, 
surely exists and surely cares for us. There 
are some of us who owe more personally to 
James Whitcomb Riley for that priceless 
thing — an unquestioning faith in God and 
Christ and immortality — than can well be put 
in words. The people who have not abandoned 
16 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

that wisest of wisdoms, the wisdom of the 
heart, don't argue about or question these in- 
finite truths. And Riley, the people's voice, 
asserts them. The poet does not syllogize 
about these eternal realities — the poet knows. 

It is these people — these millions of com- 
mon people — who pay the tribute of their love 
and admiration to James Whitcomb Riley to- 
day. For this meeting is held by the State 
Teachers' Association, and no body of men 
and women so truly represents the people as 
the teachers. Walking along a country lane 
in Germany one day, a German statesman said 
to me, pointing to a modest-appearing man, 
"There goes the German people — there walks 
the soul of the German nation." 

And in answer to my look of inquiry lie 
said: 

"That is a typical German teacher; he is 
the bulwark of the fatherland." 

This is truer of the American republic than 
of the German empire. A republican form of 
government rests on the citizen, and the 
teacher ought to be and is the maker of the 
citizen. So the teacher is the truest repre- 
sentative of the people; and thus it is that 
when the teachers of Indiana greet James 

17 



ALBERT J. BEVERIDGE 

Whitcomb Riley, the people greet their poet. 
"May he live long and prosper," and his true 
song be sung for many a year to come, and its 
music echo for ever in the souls of the people ! 



18 



ADDRESS BY 
CHARLES R. WILLIAMS 

Editor of the Indianapolis yews 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen — 
"Weak-winged is song," says Lowell, pre- 
luding his great Commemoration Ode, which 
proved his words untrue. He was thinking 
for the moment how much better it is to have 
actual part in a glorious action than to stand 
by recording or applauding; thinking 

'Tis so much less easy to do than to sing; 

thinking that 

Those who come 
With ears attuned to strenuous trump and 

drum, 
And shaped in squadron-strophes their desire, 

must look with a sort of contempt on the 
maker of rhymes who should seek to celebrate 
their valiant deeds. Ah ! but that was only a 
passing mood. Self-depreciation yields to 
truer conception of the poet's part and art: 
19 



ADDRESS BY 

Yet sometimes feathered words are strong, 
A gracious memory to buoy up and save 
From Lethe's dreamless ooze, the common grave 

Of the un venturous throng. 

"Weak-winged is song"? No, no; strong of 
wing, unwearying of flight! There are no 
men so much alive as the masters of song; 
there is nothing the human mind creates so 
enduring as poetry. 

The poet in a golden clime was born, 

With golden stars above; 
Dowered with the hate of hate, the scorn of 
scorn, 

The love of love. 

He saw through life and death, through good 
and ill, 

He saw through his own soul. 
The marvel of the everlasting will, 

An open scroll, 
Before him lay. 

What matter if in the Partition of the 
Earth, as Schiller sings, the poet is over- 
looked, as 

With dreamful eyes 
His spirit lies 
Under the walls of Paradise, 
20 



CHARLES R. WILLIAMS 

while in silent rapture he catches a vision of 
the divine countenance, or listens in ecstasy to 
Heaven's seraphic harmony? 

Alas, said Jove, the world away is given, 
The land, the chase, and trade no more are 
mine. 
But if with me thou wouldst abide in Heaven, 
Come when thou wilt, and welcome shall be 
thine. 

In "the land east of the sun and west of the 
moon," the poet has large demesnes. "The 
light that never was on land or sea" shines un- 
faltering in his eyes. With such an inherit- 
ance, what wonder the aged Goethe, thinking 
of his youth, could declare : 

Nothing I had, and yet enough ? 

Dynasties may fall, hierarchies may yield 
place, science and philosophy may wither, art 
and architecture may be despised, civilization 
itself may decay and perish, but poetry re- 
mains — with power to quicken and to sweeten 
life. Greece is a memory. But Homer and 
iEschylus and Sophocles still lord it over the 
minds of men. Roman civilization passed 

21 



ADDRESS BY 

away in corruption and debauchery. But 
Lucretius and Vergil and Horace still delight 
and instruct the world. Of all the men that 
played the leading parts upon the world's 
stage in the middle ages — popes or emperors, 
warriors or law-givers, Guelphs or Ghibellines 
— how brave soe'er a show they made, how 
large soe'er the power and prestige they en- 
joyed, what one of them all left so great and 
persistent an influence in the world ; what one 
of them all is so much alive to-day, as that 
poet who, banished from his beloved Florence, 
made spiritual pilgrimage with Beatrice into 
the after life ? 

One accent of the Holy Ghost 

The heedless world hath never lost. 

Did you ever think that in a very true sense 
we estimate peoples and nations by their 
poets? Never does a race or a country seem 
quite to have come to its majority till it can 
count a true poet to its credit. Even a country 
otherwise insignificant we think of with a 
certain respect if it can boast a poet of more 
than local appeal. Witness poor little Portu- 
gal, to which Camoens lends luster and dis- 
tinction. And when the true poet does come 

22 



CHARLES R. WILLIAMS 

to a people, how much ampler and fuller life 
grows to be! Does not every Scotsman step 
firmer and breathe deeper because of Scott 
and Burns ? Do not all 

Who speak the tongue 
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals 

hold 
Which Milton held, 

have high and worthy pride of lineage and 
race because Shakespeare and Milton de- 
livered their message to the world in English 
speech? And do not all Americans count 
among the most precious accomplishments of 
the American mind the poems of Lowell and 
Longfellow, of Whittier, Whitman and Bry- 
ant? 

Life in its elemental qualities is much the 
same under all skies, but there is infinite vari- 
ety and modification in its manifestation. It 
is the poet who penetrates the outer and ob- 
vious rind, which alone is visible to most of 
us, into the inner and hidden core of things; 
it is the poet, with his spiritual vision, that in 
the transitory and particular discovers the 
kernel of eternal and universal truth and re- 
veals it to our purblind but astonished appre- 

23 



ADDRESS BY 

hension; it is the poet that beholds in the 
commonplace life of commonplace people that 
touch of divine significance which makes the 
lowliest kin to the highest, who discovers 
anew to a doubting and scoffing generation 
that "every human heart is human." 

Matthew Arnold never tired of insisting 
that poetry is the criticism of life. By that he 
meant profound insight into the true meaning 
of life, the interpretation of life, the voicing 
of its deeper and deepest significance, the ex- 
pression of what we all in moments of spirit- 
ual exaltation, or 

When the ploughshare of deeper passion 
Tears down to our primitive rock, 

dimly or vaguely feel and strive in vain to 
find utterance for. We moil and toil and 
struggle on, busy with many concerns. 

Getting and spending we lay waste our pow- 
ers; 
Little we see in Nature that is ours. 

But all the time we are conscious that life 
is more than meat and raiment; that we are 
not making the most and the best of ourselves 
and what life offers. 

24 



CHARLES R. WILLIAMS 

But often in the world's most crowded streets, 

But often in the din of strife, 
There rises an unspeakable desire 

After the knowledge of our buried life. 

Then our poet comes ; he takes us up to the 
mount of vision; life is transfigured before 
our eyes, and we, in worshipful gratitude, 
would fain build a tabernacle to the godlike 
power that he has exercised upon our souls ! 

And unto us of Indiana a poet has been 
born, who can enter the company of the 
world's true singers with confidence of gra- 
cious welcome and grateful acclaim. The 
fame and the wholesome cheer of Riley's min- 
strelsy have been blown about the world. The 
name of Indiana is spoken everywhere with 
larger respect, because he has haloed it with 
song. But more to us even than the wide 
repute our poet has given to our common- 
wealth is the fact that he has revealed us to 
ourselves. Indiana did not seem a promising 
abode for the muses, any more than Holland 
with its dykes and dunes and level reaches 
would seem to invite the landscape artist. But 
when the true artist came he saw the pictur- 
esque in every field and village and stretch of 



25 



ADDRESS BY 

wave-washed beach. And when the poet 
came to 

Love the brown earth where we are, 

he found in the lives and hearts of our In- 
diana people, wherever he looked or listened, 
unheralded and unsuspected sources of song. 
We know ourselves better because of Riley; 
we know our neighbors better; we have truer 
sympathy with the great mass of our fellow 
citizens, because with loving, poetic insight 
and passion, he has revealed the mysteries of 
their hearts to us ; and he has opened our eyes 
to see beauties and glories in our Indiana life, 
which, except for him, we might never have 
guessed were there. 

The teachers of the state do well to honor 
him who has been the teacher of us all. They 
will do well if in all their teaching they strive 
to instil in their pupils the poet's penetration 
into the poetry of our common life and win 
them to the poet's serene and hopeful outlook. 

Oh ! let us fill our harts up with the glory of 

the day, 
And banish ev'ry doubt and care and sorrow 

fur away! 

26 



CHARLES R. WILLIAMS 

Whatever be our station, with Providence fer 
guide, 

Sich fine circumstances ort to make us satis- 
fied; 

Fer the world is full of roses, and the roses 
full of dew, 

And the dew is full of heavenly love that 
drips fer me and you. 



m 



ADDRESS BY 
MEREDITH NICHOLSON 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen — 
We are engaged to-day in the agreeable busi- 
ness of saying to a man's face what we have 
for many years been saying behind his back. 
The occasion is unique. It is not a birthday 
celebration, not a martyr's day, nor a saint's 
festival. It is just Riley's day. 

A poet's history is deep-written in his work. 
He can not be older than his latest and blith- 
est lyric; and his environment, his education, 
his ideals, are all reflected in his own verse, 
so that he who runs may read. It is idle to 
seek the man behind the song where every line 
expresses his own experience, testifies to his 
own faith, and is a prayer born of his own 
confident hope. The poems of Riley form 
our great Hoosier Iliad; but more than that, 
they are the continuing story of his own loyal, 
gentle and trustful heart. 

In his youth our young iEneas knew many 

cities, but mainly those of his own state. Like 

Thoreau, he traveled much, but chiefly on the 

nearest pike. His Roman highway was the 

28 



MEREDITH NICHOLSON 

old National Road; and as a result of this 
close contact with rural and village life, it is 
safe to say that no other people in this diverse 
nation of ours have ever been studied by any 
observer of life with so shrewd or sympathetic 
eyes. Bret Harte left California almost with 
his first success; and Mark Twain carried 
Huckleberry Finn to strange New England 
airs. 

But our young iEneas, cruising among In- 
diana cities, through those years of uncon- 
scious preparation, seeing everything, hearing 
the gossip of the county in the village mar- 
ket-places, gathered a great store of know- 
ledge, not down in the books, that was to take 
form a little later and become our truest his- 
tory, whether set forth in literary English or 
in the pungent and illuminating vernacular 
now so rapidly disappearing. 

He sought no high and strenuous key 
To mark his new blithe minstrelsy, 
Invoked no shrine on bended knee 

In Greece or Rome, 
But, all ungyved, his spirit free 

Sang most of home ! 

His writings are not mere foot-notes to his- 
tory, but important chapters of the text which 
29 



ADDRESS BY 

students of the future must know if they 
would really appreciate our rise and growth. 
Out of the ashes of pioneer camp-fires rose 
the state, and our early years were darkened 
by danger, pestilence and famine. The 
Hoosier Schoolmaster represented Indiana in 
her darkest years; but we have reached a 
point from which we may turn and peer amia- 
bly into the pit from which we came. And 
there could be no grander tribute to the po- 
tency of the yeast of democracy than that to- 
day, after fifty years of striving, this great 
company of educators pays tribute to an 
American man of letters, a product of Indiana 
common schools. 

And to a particular Hoosier schoolmaster 
I beg to offer tribute of special gratitude. 
Himself a poet, he pointed the boy Riley to 
the shining portals of the gates of song. 
Honor, all honor and glory to a citizen, a sol- 
dier, a teacher of Hancock County, Captain 
Lee O. Harris, of Greenfield ! 

Riley's advent was happily timed for the 
late twilight of our elder poets, when song 
had grown tame. His achievements loom large 
when we consider that the New England poets 
had back of them the riches of colonial his- 
30 



MEREDITH NICHOLSON 

tory and tradition, and in Longfellow's case 
the loud-sounding cadence of the sea. Riley 
caught the Hoosier type afield, between the 
district school and the village store, and set 
down his traits indelibly — his rugged adher- 
ence to the soil; his essential domesticity; his 
simple, devoted patriotism; his unquestioning 
faith in the providence of God. The Hoosier 
whom Riley knew and studied is established 
for ever in the world's portrait gallery. 

It was the poet's good fortune to witness 
the return of the Hoosier phalanx from our 
mightiest war, and with characteristic sympa- 
thy and insight he has repeatedly sung of our 
soldiers in many moods and keys. He has 
knit the Hoosier into communion with the 
peoples celebrated in all literatures — back 
through Whitcier and Longfellow to Burns 
and beyond Chaucer further still to Meleager 
and Theocritus — down all this apostolic line 
of melodists Indiana salutes Greece and her 
storied isles. 

It is not age, but it is truth that makes a 
classic. The Hoosier soldier in Good-bye, 
Jim, had not Achilles' shield, but under his 
blue coat he had Achilles' heart; and Fess- 
ler's bees are from the same hive as those that 
31 



ADDRESS BY 

hummed above Hymmetus honey. The home- 
ly flowers of our Hoosier dooryard, like the 
joys and sorrows of the Hoosier heart, have 
now their classic place because our friend and 
comrade sings of them. 

We are not here to discuss matters of liter- 
ary workmanship, but one or two points we 
may heed. Charm, grace and melody are 
Riley's obvious characteristics as an artist. 
His feeling for the inevitable word — the word 
that alone expresses his sense and feeling — 
this and an unerring sensibility to form, 
stamped him early as one born to the singing 
robes. 

But even more important, because so rare, 
is his unerring dramatic instinct. Many of 
his poems — those indeed that we know best, 
are in effect little dramas, perfect in setting 
and atmosphere, wherein the characters he 
has so abundantly discovered or created are 
endowed with life and are as veritable as 
though we met and talked with them. Ex- 
amples of his felicity in this particular crowd 
upon us — such perfect and vivid characteri- 
zations as Little Orphani Annie, Good-bye, 
Jim, and Nothin' to Say. Few lyrical poems 
in our literature are capable of awakening the 
32 



MEREDITH NICHOLSON 

same emotions, touching the same chords, as 
this last. There is crowded into its lines a 
gentleness, a simple and deep affection, with 
so much color, a dialogue so apt and a climax 
so moving, that we are left rapt and wonder- 
ing, as at the end of a beautiful drama. 

Our friend affords a rare instance of the 
natural and intuitive scholar. He became, 
without the act of any university but by the 
investiture of the American people, a doctor 
of humane letters; and it is pleasant to think 
of him as indeed wise in the heart's affairs, 
with a physician's patient ear for man's grief 
and doubt, and a balm of song for world-sick 
souls. 

And in this connection and before this 
company it is gratifying to recall that our 
friend's academic honors have not been mea- 
ger. A graduate in course of no college, he is 
a Master of Arts of Yale University ; a Doc- 
tor of Letters of Wabash College; a Doctor 
of Letters of the University of Pennsylvania, 
— verily, a prophet honored in his own time 
and in his own state and by representative in- 
stitutions of learning of the United States ! 

In paying this tribute of regard and affec- 
tion we must not forget one fact essential to 



ADDRESS BY 

any fair understanding of what Riley has 
done for us : he has never satirized us — never 
ridiculed us. His humor is of that finer kind 
that seeks for truth and is tempered with 
kindness and justice. It has long been re- 
marked of the literature of lowly life that 
there is heartache beneath its gaiety and tears 
follow close upon its laughter. 

Bagehot remarks that throughout Shake- 
speare's writings "we see an amazing sympa- 
thy with common people" ; and Riley has sung 
unbrokenly of lowly and humble men of 
heart. He has stood for that continued ideali- 
zation of the home which is the security and 
hope of the republic. 

We can not pass lightly, if we would, this 
matter of our great debt to him. No honor we 
may bestow is commensurate with the distinc- 
tion he has brought to us. He is the chief 
American poet of his generation, and only 
yesterday an English woman of letters re- 
marked in this city upon his wide acceptance 
and popularity in England. And, best of all, 
he has made it a good and fine thing to be 
born a Hoosier. 

We are not here so much to praise him as 
to congratulate ourselves. He rode into the 

34 



MEREDITH NICHOLSON 

lists against those to whom Indiana was a 
byword and a hissing; he accepted their chal- 
lenge, and we salute him to-day as our victo- 
rious champion. He is the poet laureate of 
American democracy, for democracy, let us 
say, is only the crystallized faith of man in 
man. His poems express the sane and rea- 
sonable conscience of the American people. 
He deals in eternal types, as Chaucer did. He 
has brightened the path of duty and brought 
the goal of honor near. He is a great teacher 
in the labor house of the brotherhood of man. 
He has touched old and neglected virtues with 
new life and light. Into his songs he has 
wrought the golden rosary of the beatitudes. 
And so it is with gratitude that we greet 
him and praise him and crown him anew with 
our love. 



35 



SELECTIONS READ BY 

MRS. HUGH McGIBENY 

(a) There! Little Girl; Don't Cry 

(b) Out to Old Aunt Mary's 



37 



SELECTIONS READ BY 



There Little Girtj Dob't Cry 



Andante. 



CLARENCE FORSYTH. 




bro-fcen your doll, I know- And your t«a-eet blue, And your play -bouse,too, Ara 




Cofyrt^t,UCiC W*!td<M.r 4 Sm, 



MRS. HUGH McGIBENY 

There! little girl; don't cry! 

They have broken your slate, I know; 
And the glad, wild ways 
Of your school-girl days 
Are things of the long ago; 

But life and love will soon come by. — 
There! little girl; don't cry! 

There! little girl; don't cry! 

They have broken your heart, I know; 
And the rainbow gleams 
Of your youthful dreams 
Are things of the long ago; 

But heaven holds all for which you sigh.- 
There! little girl; don't cry! 



39 



SELECTIONS READ BY 



PIANO. 



Out to Old Aunt Mary*^ 

Moderato. 



"rUTr 



saAdfc 



S^ 



j=Mfe 



Pfff 



"v poco rail. . 






^P 



f* <J 



Wwtf* tl pteuaOt Wto alt* 




iJP* r^ /-i 


'■RTT iT' r 


.. — j 


!_f p p. Ei 




nr ^ t 




* --N 


* c t 


< 1 


|j t J I 4 '=1 








»— 1 p 



Tfcomh I an? u taMT m too or* tnf— Ooi by CM U«-»BtVS patter aNm* ~Aj T«gM u tiu tip* of' Out to OM Aunt M 
and do** tb* iaos,*«» th« <lo»t atmiu, th«"drop» of the rat*. 




40 



MRS. HUGH McGIBENY 

We cross the pasture, and through the wood 
Where the old gray snag of the poplar stood, 
Where the hammering "red-heads" hopped 

awry, 
And the buzzard "raised" in the "clearing" sky 
And lolled and circled, as we went by 
Out to Old Aunt Mary's. 

And then in the dust of the road again; 
And the teams we met, and the countrymen; 
And the long highway, with sunshine spread 
As thick as butter on country bread, 
Our cares behind, and our hearts ahead 
Out to Old Aunt Mary's. 

Why, I see her now in the open door, 

Where the little gourds grew up the sides and 

o'er 
The clapboard roof! — And her face — ah, me! 
Wasn't it good for a boy to see — 
And wasn't it good for a boy to be 
Out to Old Aunt Mary's? 

The jelly — the jam and the marmalade, 

And the cherry and quince "preserves" she 

made! 
And the sweet-sour pickles of peach and pear, 
With cinnamon in 'em, and all things rare! — 
And the more we ate was the more to spare, 
Out to Old Aunt Mary's! 



41 



MRS. HUGH McGIBENY 

And the old spring-house in the cool green 

gloom 
Of the willow-trees, — and the cooler room 
Where the swinging-shelves and the crocks 

were kept — 
Where the cream in a golden languor slept 
While the waters gurgled and laughed and 

wept — 

Out to Old Aunt Mary's. 

And my brother, so far away, 
This is to tell you she waits to-day 
To welcome us: — Aunt Mary fell 
Asleep this morning, whispering — "Tell 
The boys to come!" And all is well 
Out to Old Aunt Mary's. 



42 



ADDRESS BY 
HENRY WATTERSON 

Editor of the Louisville Courier -Journal 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen — 
Surely this must be "the Riley we've heard 
of so highly." Else, what are we here for? 
Wherefore else the songs and the garlands, 
the rhythm of soul and voice, the music of a 
summer sea of heart-waves, mocking at win- 
ter as they bear the poet's shallop from the 
Isle of Dreams, where he makes his abode, to 
this Palace of Enchantment, where he holds 
his court? 

It is good to be here, to snuggle in the 
farthest corner — the biggest along with the 
littlest — because here at least there's naught 
but sunshine ; the frost that's on the pumpkin 
is outside; why, even the "gobble-uns" have 
hied up the chimney and taken themselves off 
to never-never-never-land ! And, it is a good 
time to be here; the radiance of the blessed 
Christmastide about us, the heels of old Santa 
Claus yet in sight as he trips into his empty 
43 



ADDRESS BY 

sleigh and jingles through the air — Riley, 
himself, translated and gone where the good 
poets go! Truly, he is a good poet! Away 
back yonder — just after he had printed his 
first volume — a yard-master of one of the rail- 
ways, who had known him as the artist that 
had marked and numbered the box-cars — 
even then an embryo man of letters — said 
proudly of him, "Riley, sir? Jim Riley, sir? 
Why, sir, do you know that Jim Riley's got to 
be one o' the best poets in Hancock County, 
sir?" 

We will all subscribe to that ; though, some- 
how, Hancock County has widened and broad- 
ened and deepened into the Universe, and he 
that was called the Hoosier poet — bursting 
the bands of mere geographic limitation — 
stands at length with the immortals of the 
whole creation! 

But the other day a famous company in 
New York celebrated the seventieth birthday 
of the most famous of our prose-writers, as 
we are here celebrating the noontide of our 
great and honored poet, our neighbor and our 
friend ; and, though I have fought throughout 
my life against sectionalism in all its forms, 
I can not repress a kind of sneaking satisfac- 

44 



HENRY WATTERSON 

tion in the thought that the East, having ex- 
hausted its supply, has had to come West for 
a fresh crop of poets and humorists and 
novelists — finding most of them, by the way, 
in Indiana — even Howells in Ohio — and the 
satisfaction rises into exultation when I re- 
flect that the standards of the literature of 
my country, thus following the star of em- 
pire, are held by hands so stalwart as those 
of Mark Twain and William Dean Howells 
and James Whitcomb Riley, with the Tark- 
ingtons, the Majors, the Nicholsons, the 
Dunnes and the Ades to bring up the sup- 
ports and take their places when they are 
gone. 

But we are not here to make literary criti- 
cisms — just to love Riley, and one another — 
friends and brothers — and sisters, too — 
though maybe I had better not dwell on that 
point. "Ah,Tam,ah,Tam,it ga's mee greet" — 
at least that line of your illustrious progenitor 
can not be applied to you — more's the pity — 
more's the pity ! And yet in a way, Riley has 
made his peace with the women through the 
children. Or is it that each woman wants her 
poet all to herself, and that as long as he re- 
mains unmarried she can claim him for her 
45 



ADDRESS BY 

own and he is hers ? We have no record that 
Horace had a wife, nor Beranger, and per- 
haps poor Burns had been better without; so 
that there does seem a fitness that the apos- 
tolic succession of these in laying the final 
hand upon Riley, should find him celibate. 
Anyhow, as the good Rip observes, "we won't 
count that." The goddess of song is the poet's 
bride; and when I recall and try to classify 
this poet's brood, I stand aghast, nor wonder 
that he laid so many of them at the door of 
"Benj. F. Johnson, of Boone." 

I rejoice with you in the name and fame 
of James Whitcomb Riley; but, within my- 
self, I rejoice yet more in his personality. 
Like the poets of old, he looked into his heart 
and wrote, and what thirst-quenching drafts 
has he not brought up from that unfailing 
well: barefoot lays of the forest and the farm; 
the bygone time and the "sermonts" of na- 
ture, "made out o* truck 'at's jes' going to 
waste," smiling godspeed on the plow and the 
furrow and the seed, as on man in his need — 
Somepin* with live-stock in it, and out-doors, 
And old crick-bottoms, snags, and sycamores. 

That is Riley, God bless him! and all his 
troop of loved ones, from The Raggedy Man 
46 



HENRY WATTERSON 

to Little Orphant Annie, as God be thanked 
that his genius gave them shelter — that, in 
this our poet laureate, Thought grew tired of 
wandering o'er the world and home-bound 
Fancy ran her bark ashore. 



*1 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen — 
In a very humble life you have made a most 
distinctive and memorable day, and I feel in 
the acceptance of your great consideration 
that the tribute is mine only as I stand as a 
simple representative of my own Hoosier peo- 
ple here at home. To the distinguished orators 
who have, through their high gifts, so greatly 
honored Indiana and her citizenship, is due 
our mutual gratitude, since they speak for us 
out of many diverse and exalted stations of 
life and public service. Indeed, it seems that 
from all points of the compass are contributed 
to this event these gifted tongues of elo- 
quence, and to these our thanks are due: to 
the statesman and orator; to the scholastic 
master and reverend; to the poet and ro- 
mancer; to the notable academic author-ed- 
itor, and to that great voice and spirit of our 
country of to-day, Henry Watterson, loved 
and honored here as in the hearts of Amer- 
ica at large — to all these, as has been demon- 
strated by this vast and brilliant audience, 
we are mutually beholden. 

48 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 

As to the teachers and the schools of In- 
diana, for this combined expression of favor, 
what can I say but most simply confess my 
especial thanks to them, a debt embracing 
all the space of life between my earliest 
youth and the present moment — from my 
first teacher to my last. And of these, two out 
of the long list of like benefactors, I may be 
excused for personally referring to at this 
time. 

The first of them was a little, old, rosy, 
roly-poly woman — looking as though she 
might have just come rolling out of a fairy 
story, so lovable she was and so jolly and so 
amiable. Her school was kept in her little old 
Dame Trot sort of dwelling of three rooms, 
and — like a bracket on the wall — a little 
porch in the rear, which was part of the 
playground of her "scholars," — for in those 
days pupils were called "scholars" very affec- 
tionately by their teacher; and her very 
youthful school was composed of possibly 
twelve or fifteen boys and girls. I remember 
particularly the lame boy, who always got the 
first ride in the swing in the locust tree dur- 
ing "recess." 

This first teacher was a mother, too, to all 
40 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 

of her "scholars," and in every particular 
her care was notable, especially at the drowsi- 
ness of certain little ones. They were often 
carried to an inner room — a sitting-room — 
where many times I was taken with a pair of 
little chaps and laid to slumber on a little 
made-down pallet on the floor. She would 
oftentimes take three or four of us together; 
and I can recall how a playmate and I, hav- 
ing been admonished into silence, grew deep- 
ly interested in looking at a spare old man 
sitting always by the window, which had its 
shade drawn down. After a while we became 
accustomed to the idea, and when our awe 
had subsided we used to sit in a little sewing- 
chair and laugh and talk in whispers and 
give imitations of the little old pendulating 
blind man at the window. Well, the old man 
was the gentle woman's charge, and for this 
reason, possibly, her life had become an he- 
roic one, caring for this old husband of hers, 
who, blind and helpless, lived perfectly con- 
tent, waiting always at the window for his 
sight to come back to him — for his vision to 
be restored — as it doubtless is to-day, as he 
sits at another casement and sees not only his 
earthly friends, but all the friends of the 
50 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 

Eternal Home, with the smiling, loyal, lov- 
ing little woman for ever at his side. 

The last teacher I remember, with an af- 
fection no less fervent, though of a maturer 
kind, was, — and is, — a man of many gifts, a 
profound lover of literature and a modest 
producer in story and in song, in history, and 
even in romance and drama, although his life- 
effort was given first of all to education. 
Most happily living to-day and hale and vigor- 
ous, he has but very recently retired from 
high and honorable office in my native county. 
To him I owe possibly the first gratitude of 
my heart and soul, since, after a brief war- 
fare, upon our first acquaintance as teacher 
and pupil, he informed me gently but firmly 
that since I was so persistent in secretly read- 
ing novels during school hours he would in- 
sist upon his right to choose the novels I 
should read, whereupon the "Beadle" and 
"Munro" dime novels were discarded for such 
genuine masterpieces of fiction as those of 
Washington Irving, Cooper, Dickens, Thack- 
eray and Scott; so that it may be virtually 
recorded that the first study of literature in 
a Iloosier country school was (perhaps very 
consciously) introduced by my first of liter- 

51 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 

ary friends and inspirers, Captain Lee O. 
Harris, of Greenfield. 

Again expressing my profound thanks to 
all, I turn to such selections of homely 
Hoosier verse as have been asked for by the 
committee in charge of our programme. 

THE NAME OF OLD GLORY 

1898 

When, why, and by whom, was our flag, the Stars and 
Stripes, first called " Old Glory"?— Daily Query to Press. 

I 

Old Glory! say, who, 

By the ships and the crew, 

And the long, blended ranks of the gray and the 
blue, — 

Who gave you, Old Glory, the name that you 
bear 

With such pride everywhere 

As you cast yourself free to the rapturous air 

And leap out full-length, as we're wanting you 
to?— 

Who gave you that name, with the ring of the 
same, 

And the honor and fame so becoming to you? — 

Your stripes stroked in ripples of white and of 
red, 

With your stars at their glittering best over- 
head — 

By day or by night 

Their delightfulest light 

52 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 

Laughing down from their little square heaven 

of blue! — 
Who gave you the name of Old Glory? — say, 

who — 

Who gave you the name of Old Glory? 

The old banner lifted, and faltering then 

In vague lisps and whispers fell silent again. 

ii 

Old Glory, — speak out! — we are asking about 
How you happened to "favor" a name, so to say, 
That sounds so familiar and careless and gay 
As we cheer it and shout in our wild breezy 

way — 
We — the crowd, every man of us, calling you 

that— 
We — Tom, Dick and Harry — each swinging his 

hat 
And hurrahing "Old Glory!" like you were our 

kin, 
When — Lord! — we all know we're as common 

as sin! 
And yet it just seems like you humor us all 
And waft us your thanks, as we hail you and 

fall 
Into line, with you over us, waving us on 
Where our glorified, sanctified betters have 

gone. — 
And this is the reason we're wanting to know — 
(And we're wanting it so! — 

53 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 

Where our own fathers went we are willing to 

go.) — 
Who gave you the name of Old Glory — O-ho! — 
Who gave you the name of Old Glory? 

The old flag unfurled with a billowy thrill 
For an instant, then wistfully sighed and was 
still. 



in 

Old Glory: the story we're wanting to hear 

Is what the plain facts of your christening 

were, — 
For your name — just to hear it, 
Repeat it, and cheer it, 's a tang to the spirit 
As salt as a tear; — 

And seeing you fly, and the boys marching by, 
There's a shout in the throat and a blur in the 

eye 
And an aching to live for you always — or die, 
If, dying, we still keep you waving on high. 
And so, by our love 
For you, floating above, 
And the scars of all wars and the sorrows 

thereof, 
Who gave you the name of Old Glory, and why 

Are we thrilled at the name of Old Glory? 

Then the old banner leaped, like a sail in the 

blast, 
And fluttered an audible answer at last. — 

54 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 



And it spake, with a shake of the voice, and it 
said: 

By the driven snow-white and the living blood- 
red 

Of my bars, and their heaven of stars over- 
head — 

By the symbol conjoined of them all, skyward 
cast, 

As I float from the steeple, or flap at the mast, 

Or droop o'er the sod where the long grasses 
nod, — 

My name is as old as the glory of God. 

.... So I came by the name of Old Glory. 



LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE 

Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to 

stay, 
An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the 

crumbs away, 
An* shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the 

hearth, an' sweep, 
An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn 

her board-an'-keep; 
An' all us other childern, when the supper 

things is done, 
We set around the kitchen fire an' has the most- 

est fun 

55 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 

A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells 

about, 
An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you 
Ef you 
Don't 

Watch 
Out! 
Onc't they was a little boy wouldn't say his 

prayers, — 
So when he went to bed at night, away up 

stairs, 
His Mammy heerd him holler, an' his Daddy 

heerd him bawl, 
An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he 

wasn't there at all! 
An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' 

cubby-hole, an' press, 
An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'- 

wheres, I guess; 
But all they ever found was thist his pants an' 

roundabout: — 
An* the Gobble-uns'll git you 
Ef you 
Don't 

Watch 
Out! 
An' one time a little girl 'ud alius laugh aji' 

grin, 
An' make fun of ever'one, an' all her blood an' 

kin; 
An* onc't, when they was "company," an' ole 
folks was there, 

Gf 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 

She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she 

didn't care! 
An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to 

run an' hide, 
They was two great big Black Things a-standin' 

by her side, 
An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore 

she knowed what she's about! 
An' the Gobble-uns'll git you 
Ef you 
Don't 

Watch 
Out! 
-An' little Orphant Annie says when the blaze is 

blue, 
An' the lamp-wick sputters, an' the wind goes 

woo-ool 
An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is 

gray, 
An* the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched 

away, — 
You better mind yer parents, an' yer teachers 

fond an' dear, 
An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the 

orphant's tear, 
An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all 

about, 
Er the Gobble-uns'll git you 
Ef you 
Don't 

Watch 
Out! 

57 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 

THOUGHTS FER THE DISCURAGED 
FARMER 

The summer winds is sniffin' round the bloom- 
in' locus' trees; 
And the clover in the pastur is a big day fer the 

bees, 
And they been a-swiggin' honey, above board 

and on the sly, 
Tel they stutter in theyr buzzin' and stagger as 

they fly. 
The flicker on the fence-rail 'pears to jest spit 

on his wings 
And roll up his feathers, by the sassy way he 

sings; 
And the hoss-fly is a-whettin'-up his forelegs 

fer biz, 
And the off-mare is a-switchin' all of her tale 

they is. 

You can hear the blackbirds jawin' as they rol- 
ler up the plow — 

Oh, theyr bound to git theyr brekfast, and 
theyr not a-carin' how; 

So they quarrel in the furries, and they quarrel 
on the wing — 

But theyr peaceabler in pot-pies than any other 
thing: 

And it's when I git my shotgun drawed up in 
stiddy rest, 

She's as full of tribbelation as a yeller-jacket's 
nest; 

58 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 

And a few shots before dinner, when the sun's 
a-shinin' right, 

Seems to kindo'-sorto' sharpen up a feller's ap- 
petite! 

They's been a heap o' rain, but the sun's out 

to-day, 
And the clouds of the wet spell is all cleared 

away, 
And the woods is all the greener, and the grass 

is greener still; 
It may rain again to-morry, but I don't think it 

will. 
Some says the crops is ruined, and the corn's 

drownded out, 
And propha-sy the wheat will be a failure, with- 
out doubt; 
But the kind Providence that has never failed 

us yet, 
Will be on hands onc't more at the 'leventh 

hour, I bet! 

Does the medder-lark complane, as he swims 

high and dry 
Through the waves of the wind and the blue of 

the sky? 
Does the quail set up and whissel in a disap- 

pinted way, 
Er hang his head in silunce, and sorrow all the 

day? 
Is the chipmuck's health a-failin'? — Does he 

walk, er does he run? 

59 



RESPONSE BY MR. RILEY 

Don't the buzzards ooze around up thare jest 
like they've alius done? 

Is they anything the matter with the rooster's 
lungs er voice? 

Ort a mortul be complainin' when dumb ani- 
mals rejoice? 

Then let us, one and all, be contentud with our 

lot; 
The June is here this morning, and the sun is 

shining hot. 
Oh! let us fill our harts up with the glory of 

the day, 
And banish ev'ry doubt and care and sorrow 

fur away! 
Whatever be our station, with Providence fer 

guide, 
Sich fine circumstances ort to make us satis- 
fied; 
Fer the world is full of roses, and the roses 

full of dew, 
And the dew is full of heavenly love that drips 

fer me and you. 



60 



A Sketch of the Life 
of 

James Whitcomb Riley 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF JAMES 
WHITCOMB RILEY 

It seems appropriate to the thousands of 
admirers of James Whitcbmb Riley's poetry 
that he should have been born in a town of 
so poetic a name as Greenfield, which recalls 
one of his most familiar volumes, Green 
Fields and Running Brooks. Greenfield is a 
small town some score of miles from Indian- 
apolis, and a good place for the boyhood 
home of a poet. James Whitcomb Riley was 
the second son of Reuben A. and Elizabeth 
Marine Riley. When he was fifteen years 
old he ceased to attend the public schools of 
his native town ; and, finally obeying the wish 
of his father, who was an attorney in Green- 
field, he began, like so many other American 
men of letters, to study law. 

Law, however, did not prove an alluring 
master for a boy bubbling over with poetry, 
not as yet finding its way into rhyme and 
stanza, but calling him insistently to wood 
and field. One mid-summer afternoon, when 
the air was hot and sultry, the little town was 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

awakened from its slumber by the advent of 
a patent-medicine and concert wagon. Black- 
stone was flung to the winds and young Riley 
found himself beating the bass drum for the 
patent-medicine men. With no farewells, the 
drum and Riley left Greenfield together. All 
through the summer months he traveled with 
the patent-medicine wagon, "seeing life" for 
the first time. When fall came he found that 
he was without means of getting home for the 
winter, but by the aid of a bucket and brush 
he managed to paint enough signs and picket 
fences along the homeward way to reach 
Greenfield once more. 

His first literary venture appeared in a 
little country paper, which had but a brief 
existence and finally ended in bankruptcy. 
Through the influence of a friend, however, 
he was given the position of local editor on 
the Democrat, a paper published in the town 
of Anderson, Indiana, whither he had earlier 
chanced to wander on his summer's tour as a 
sign painter. He had always been regarded 
by his friends as bright and clever. What- 
ever demanded cleverness — whether sign- 
painting, story-telling or versifying — he did 
with a skill and effectiveness far beyond his 
64 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

comrades, so when he went on the staff of the 
Democrat "he brought with his verses/' as 
one writer says, "all the wit with which he 
had been accustomed to regale his little circle 
of friends, and. the mock seriousness with 
which he took himself and his paper made it 
for a time a more welcome sheet in Anderson 
households than would have been a comic al- 
manac." In time, however, his poems — to 
which the editor preferred local "items'' — be- 
gan to be thought quite lacking in usefulness 
for a country newspaper. When poems like 
the Wrangdillion began to appear : 

"Dexery — tethery ! down in the dike, 

Under tbe — under the ooze and the slime, 

Nestles the wraith of a reticent Gryke, 
Blubbering bubbles of rhyme," 

the poet met with still more distrust. 

An "esteemed contemporary" of the Demo- 
crat wished to know the meaning of lines like 
these, upon which the poet replied in his own 
paper that they were "a sort of poetic fungus 
that springs from the decay of better effort. 
After long labor at verse, you will find there 
comes a time when everything you see or hear, 
touch, taste or smell resolves itself into rhyme, 
65 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

and rattles away till you can't rest. I mean 
this literally. The people you meet upon the 
streets are so many disarranged rhymes, and 
only need proper coupling. The boulders in 
the sidewalk are jangled words. The crowd 
of corner loungers is a mangled sonnet with 
a few lines lacking; the farmer and his 
team an idyl of the road, perfected and com- 
plete when he stops at the picture of a gro- 
cery and hitches to an exclamation point. 
From this tireless something which 

Beats time to nothing in my head 
From some odd corner of the brain! 

I walk, I run, I writhe and wrestle, but I can 
not shake it off. I lie down to sleep and all 
night long it haunts me. Whole cantos of in- 
coherent rhymes dance before me, and, so viv- 
idly, at last I seem to read them as from a 
book. All this is without will power of my 
own to guide or check, and then occurs a 
stage of repetition — when the matter becomes 
rhythmically tangible at least, and shapes it- 
self into, a whole of sometimes a dozen stan- 
zas and goes on repeating itself over and 
over and over till it is printed indelibly on my 
mind. 

66 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"This stage heralds sleep at last, from 
which I wake refreshed and free from the 
toils of my persecutor; but some senseless 
piece of rhyme is printed on my mind and I 
go about repeating it as though I had com- 
mitted it from the pages of some book. I 
often write these jingles afterward, though I 
believe I never could forget a word of them. 

"This is the history of the Craqueodoom. 
This is the history of the poem I give below — 
Wrangdillion. I have theorized in vain. I 
went gravely to a doctor, on one occasion, and 
asked him seriously if he didn't think I was 
crazy. His laconic reply that he 'never saw 
a poet that wasn't* is not without its consola- 
tion." 

As time went on, however, he compromised 
by putting into rhyme the praises of all the 
storekeepers of Anderson. 

All this time, however, he was striving for 
better things. He sent poem after poem to 
the magazines only to have them returned. It 
was his name, he believed, that prevented him 
from making his work felt with the editors. 
"J. W. Riley," he held, was too great a handi- 
cap for any man. It was his conviction that 
if he could sign one of his poems with the 

67 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

name of some one famed in literature, its re- 
ception would be unquestioned. "This asser- 
tion, made and received half in jest, half in 
earnest, gave rise to a very significant episode 
in the life of the young poet. ,, In an article 
in the Bookman Mrs. Louise Parks Richards, 
whose husband was closely associated with 
Riley during his life in Anderson, tells the 
story of this episode. 

Riley and Richards and a few others were 
together a few days afterward in the law of- 
fice of one of their friends. "Riley seemed 
nervous," Mrs. Richards tells the story, 
"when hesitatingly he took from his pocket 
a piece of paper saying: 'Last night I 
couldn't sleep and so I got out of bed and 
wrote this.' Impatient at Riley's trepidation, 
the lawyer took the paper from him and read 
aloud the lines of a poem entitled Leonainie, 
written in the style of Edgar Allan Poe. 

"It was enthusiastically received and com- 
mented upon when Riley announced that this 
little poem was to be the test of his theory as 
to the value of a reputation. A plan of local 
campaigning was afterward decided upon, 
from which no end of amusement was to be 
realized, and which was to settle the oft-dis- 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

puted question. As to any weighty conse- 
quences which might arise from this experi- 
ment, there was no thought. 

"A young college graduate in a neighboring 
town had just started on the ambitious career 
of an editor of a county paper. His tastes, 
however, were rather those of a student than 
of a law-giver in local politics, and conse- 
quently he became deeply interested ID the 
poetry of the Anderson Democrat, which lie 
found among his exchanges. He copied these 
poems into his own paper, irith most lauda- 
tory comment, although the author WBS to him 
unknown. He d, however, that these 

unsigned*, but leaded 1 poems must be from 

te member of the Democrat oflii 

ley had been touched by this neighborly 

ignition, for at home his editor-in-chief 

had of encouragement, and in the 

fullness of his heart he had written to express 
liis >r the 'friendly hand extended 

out of the impenetrable.' His doubt of any 

wider appreciation than that near home, how- 
ever, he made no attempt to conceal, for, 'of 

course.' he WT< ;olastie critics will 

say that nothing good can come out of In- 
diana that this is not the soil out of which 
69 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

poets grow — besides, the simple name "Riley" 
is enough in itself to wither any prospect/ As 
a still further stumbling-block, he humorously 
enumerated, among other characteristics of 
his pen, that of writing 'while' when the purist 
demanded 'whilst,' and 'among* instead of 
'amongst,' etc., etc. 

"When Leonainie was written Riley natu- 
rally turned to his unseen admirer of the 
Kokomo Dispatch, explaining by letter the 
proposed joke, and asking his cooperation in 
launching his pinchbeck poem upon the pub- 
lic, it not being deemed prudent to publish it 
in the Anderson Democrat, lest its origin 
might be suspected. The Kokomo editor was 
delighted with the project, and promised most 
hearty assistance. 

"As Riley afterward said, in looking about 
over the list of dead poets, he had selected 
Poe as a little in the hoaxing line himself, 
holding that perhaps he would not particu- 
larly care if some liberties were taken with 
his name. The fictitious account of the origin 
and discovery of Leonainie, which Riley him- 
self had devised, had cost him more time and 
pains than the poem itself, yet this produc- 
tion was rejected as being too fanciful, and 
70 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

one of the Kokomo editor's own manufacture 
was substituted and published as follows, in 
the Kokomo Dispatch of August 2, 1877: 



" 'POSTHUMOUS POETRY 

" 'A Hitherto Unpublished Poem of the La- 
mented Edgar Allan Poe, written on the 
Fly-Leaf of an Old Book Now 
in Possession of a Gentle- 
man in This City. 

" 'The following beautiful posthumous 
poem from the gifted pen of the erratic poet, 
Edgar Allan Poe, we beli ve has never be- 
fore been published in any form, either in any 
published collection of Poe's poems now ex- 
tant, or in any magazine or newspaper of any 
description; and until the critics shall show 
conclusively to the contrary the Dispatch will 
claim the honor of giving it to the world. 

'That the poem has never before been 
published; and that it is a genuine production 
of the poet whom we claim to be its author, 
we are satisfied from the circumstances under 
which it came into our possession, after a 
thorough investigation. Calling at the house 
of a gentleman of this city the other day on 
a business errand, our attention was called to 
71 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

a poem written on the blank fly-leaf of an old 
book. Handing up the book he observed that 
it (the poem) might be good enough to pub- 
lish, and if we thought so, to take it along. 
Noticing the initials, E. A. P., at the bottom 
of the poem, it struck us that possibly we had 
run across a "bonanza," so to speak, and 
after reading it, we asked who its author was, 
when he related the following bit of interest- 
ing reminiscence: 

" 'He said that he did not know who the 
author was, only that he was a young man, 
that is, he was a young man when he wrote 
the lines referred to. He had never seen him 
himself, but heard his grandfather, who gave 
him the book containing the verses, tell of the 
circumstance and occasion by which he (the 
grandfather) came into possession of the 
book. His grandparents kept a country ho- 
tel, a sort of wayside inn, in a small village 
called Chesterfield, near Richmond, Virginia. 
One night, just before bedtime, a young man, 
who showed plainly the marks of dissipation, 
rapped at the door and asked if he could stay 
all night, and was shown to a room. This 
was the last they saw of him. When they 
went to the room the next morning to call him 
to breakfast he had gone away and left the 
book, on the fly-leaf of which he had written 
the lines below. 

" 'Further than this our informant knew 
nothing, and, being an uneducated, illiterate 

72 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

man, it was quite natural that he should allow 
the great literary treasure to go for so many 
years unpublished. 

c 'That the above statement is true, and our 
discovery no canard, we will take pleasure in 
satisfying any one who cares to investigate 
the matter. The poem is written in Roman 
characters, and is almost as legible as print it- 
self, although somewhat faded by the lapse 
of time. Another peculiarity in the manu- 
script, which we notice, is that it contains not 
the least sign of erasure, or a single inter- 
lineated word. We give the poem verbatim — 
just as it appears in the original. Here it is: 

" 'Leonainie — Angels named her; 

And they took the light 
Of the laughing stars and framed her 
In a smile of white; 
And they made her hair of gloomy 
Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy 
Moonshine, and they brought her to me 
In the solemn night. — 

In a solemn night of summer, 

When my heart of gloom 
Blossomed up to greet the comer 
Like a rose in bloom; 

All forebodings that distressed me 
I forgot, as joy caressed me — 
(Lying joy! that caught and pressed me 
In the arms of doom!) 

73 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

Only spake the little lisper 

- In the Angel-tongue; 
Yet I, listening, heard her whisper — 
"Songs are only sung 

Here below that they may grieve you — 
Tales but told you to deceive you, — 
So must Leonainie leave you 
While her love is young." 

Then God smiled and it was morning, 

Matchless and supreme; 
Heaven's glory seemed adorning 
Earth with its esteem; 

Every heart but mine seemed gifted 
With the voice of prayer, and lifted 
Where my Leonainie drifted 
From me like a dream. 

E. A. P.' 

"To be able to furnish the proof of Poe's 
authorship in the event of a possible investi- 
gation, it was deemed necessary to counterfeit 
Poe's handwriting. Lithographic facsimiles 
of a few lines of that author's original manu- 
scripts having been obtained, Richards, the 
partner in the coalition, who was an expert 
with the pen, had gone to work diligently, 
practising with pale ink on the blank pages 
of old yellowed books, to imitate the chirog- 
raphy of Edgar Allan Poe. 

74 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"Richards' interest and enthusiasm rivaled 
Riley's own, and every day his experiments 
grew more and more like the original. At last 
the transcript was pronounced beyond detec- 
tion, the same accuracy in punctuation, the 
same carefulness in copy, which marked Poe's 
own manuscripts, having been skilfully imi- 
tated. It was then copied on one of the 
blank ]■ of an old Ainsworth's Latin- 

' tiouary, from the lawyer friend's 
library, and forwarded to the Kokomo editor, 
who contributed further to the plot by coach- 
ing an old man in his town in the role of the 

possessor of tl and of the grandson of 

the mythical tavern-keeper in Virginia. 
"The rival of the Democrat, the Anderson 

Herald, in copying Leofta'ntic from the Ko- 
komo Dispatch the next wet k ap- 
iiiee, delivered itself of th<- followi 

M 'We expect a rha] dons censure 

from the jingling editor of the sheet 

the way, and shall wait, with the first anxiety 

ever experienced, for the appearance of the 

Democrat. We look for an exhausting and 
damning criticism from Riley, who will doubt- 
less fail to mainie 9 * apocrypha] merit, 
and discover its obvious faults. As it V 

led to believe Leonainie, to quote from 

75 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

Riley, s a 'superior quality of the poetic 
fungus, which springs from the decay of bet- 
ter thoughts/ ' ' 

"Sure enough, the poet of the Democrat did 
come out with a long article upon the literary 
discovery announced in the Kokomo Dispatch, 
from which, as he wrote, 'the following ex- 
tract from a lush and juicy article occurs.' 
Reproducing the poem and its strange story, 
he proceeded with the predicted 'jealous cen- 
sure' : 

" 'We frankly admit that, upon first read- 
ing of the article, we inwardly resolved to ig- 
nore it entirely. Passing the many assailable 
points of the story regarding the birth and 
late discovery of the poem, we shall briefly 
consider first — Is Poe the author of it? 

" 'That a poem contains some literary ex- 
cellence is no assurance that its author is a 
genius known to fame, for how many waifs 
of richest worth are now afloat upon the lit- 
erary sea, whose authors are unknown, and 
whose nameless names have never marked the 
graves that hide their hidden value from the 
world ; and in the present instance we have no 
right to say: "This is Poe's work — for who 
but Poe could mold a name like Leonainie?" 
and all that sort of flighty flummery. Let us 
look deeper down, and pierce below the glare 
76 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

and gurgle of the surface and analyze it at 
its real worth. 

" 'Xow we are ready to consider — Is the 
theme of the poem one that Poe would have 
been likely to select? We think not: for we 
have good authority showing that Poe had a 
positive aversion to children, and especially 
babies ; and then, again, the thought embodied 
in the very opening line is not new — or at 
least the poet has before expressed it where 
he speaks of that "rare and radiant maiden, 
whom the angels name Lenore," and a care- 
ful analysis of the remainder of the stanza 
fails to discover a single quality above mere 
change of form or transposition. 

! 'The second stanza will be a more difficult 
matter to contest, for we find in it throughout 
not only Poe's peculiar bent of thought, but 

new features of thai weird faculty of attract- 
ively combining with the delicate and beauti- 
ful, the dread and repulsive — a power most 
rarely manifest, and quite beyond the hounds 
of imitation. In fact the only flaw we find at 
which to pick is the strange omission of capi- 
tals beginning the personified words, M jo 
and "doom." This, however, may he an error 
of the compositor's, but not probably. 

! 'The third stanza drops again. True, it 
gives us some new thoughts, but of very sec- 
ondary worth compared with the foregoi: 
and in such commonplace diction the Poe 
characteristic is almost lost. 

77 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

M 'The first line of the concluding stanza, 
although embodying a highly poetical idea, is 
not at all like Poe; but rather unlike, and for 
such weighty reasons we are assured that the 
thought could not have emanated from him. 
It is a fact less known than remarkable that 
Poe avoided the name of the Deity. Al- 
though he never tires of angels and the heav- 
enly cherubim, the word God seems strangely 
ostracized. That this is true, one has but to 
search his poems; and we think we are safe 
in the assertion that in all that he has ever 
written the word God is not mentioned 
twenty times. In further evidence of this pe- 
culiar aversion of the poet, we quote his ut- 
terance : 

"Oh, Heaven: Oh, God: 
How my heart beats in coupling these words!" 

" 'The remainder of the concluding stanza 
is mediocre till the few lines that complete it 
— and there again the Poe element is strongly 
marked. To sum the poem as a whole we are 
at some loss. It most certainly contains rare 
attributes of grace and beauty; and although 
we have not the temerity to accuse the gifted 
poet of its authorship, for equal strength of 
reason we can not deny that it is his produc- 
tion; but as for the enthusiastic editor of the 
Dispatch, we are not inclined, as yet, to the 
belief that he is wholly impervious to the 
wiles of deception.' 

78 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

"In its next issue the Herald man con- 
gratulated himself on his fulfilled prophecy. 
'True to our prognostication of last week/ he 
said, 'J. W. Riley, editor of the Democrat, 
slashes into Leonainie in a jealous manner/ 
The poet's criticism and skepticism were fur- 
ther commented upon in a column article. 

"Leonainie, with lengthy dissertations, was 
widely copied. From newspapers the story of 
the 'literary find' spread into more critical 
quarters. Article after article, in proof of 
the genuineness of Poo'c Leonainie, appeared 
over the names of known critics. The pre- 
sumptuous youth of a weekly newspaper, who 
sought to disclaim or cast a doubt on that 
which men of judgment accepted as genuine, 
was himself engulfed, while his poem con- 
tinued to go the rounds of appreciative notice. 

"A Boston publishing house, which had a 
Life of Toe in preparation, now wrote to the 
Dispatch asking for the original manuscript 
of Leonainie. It seemed that the most san- 
guine expectations of the merry plotters were 
to be more than realized. Then it began to 
dawn upon them that jokes sometimes have 
unpleasant consequences; that this joke in 
particular had assumed such huge proportions 
79 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

that it had become a risk to carry longer. 
The possibilities of two versions of a joke for 
the first time suggested themselves, but with 
the battery handles tight in the grasp of the 
perpetrators, it was difficult to let go. 

"Riley himself, appalled at the success of 
his literary fraud, repeatedly wrote to the 
Kokomo editor to turn off the current, to put 
an end to it all before it became too serious, 
by an explanation to the public, but the ed- 
itor, Mr. Henderson, was enjoying it too well, 
and insisted that the time had not yet come 
for the denouement. It M T as finally decided 
that prudence, at least, forbade sending the 
manuscript to the publishers in Boston, and 
so its delivery was refused. 

"At last the senior editor of the Anderson 
Herald, learning the true story of Leonainie's 
authorship, generously communicated infor- 
mation of the facts to the Kokomo Tribune, 
the rival of the Dispatch, the exposure of 
whose hoax and the author presented oppor- 
tunities to 'even up' some old scores of jour- 
nalistic jealousies. 

"Through the boastful communication of a 
young son of the Tribune editor, that 'his fa- 
ther was going to print something about the 
80 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Dispatch's big stories, Mr. Henderson had 
timely warning, and in his next issue, antici- 
pating the rival exposure, pricked his own 
bubble, disclosing the true authorship of 
Leonainie. 

"To say that Riley won his wager would be 
only half the truth, for his joke on the lit 
ary world exceeded hi I expectations; 

but for him it had so far lost its zest that he 
could not bear to have allusion made to it 

ra after he had been wholly fledged t> 
local editor to poet." 

widely copied urine 

Poe poem, deceiving even well-known crit 
Even after Mr. Riley's name waa discloc 

as that of the real author, they refused to he 

convinced* The poem now appean in the vol- 
ume entitled A rmazlnd if, and hafl ako been in- 
cluded in l.< 

In l ss:> Mr. Riley's first volume of po 

appeared, entitled The Old Srrimmin'-I I 
and 'Lcven More Poems. The volumes ap- 
peared under the pseudonym of Benj. T. 
Johnson, o( Boone, hut it very quickly be- 
came known that the author was James Whit- 
comb Riley. 

In the preface to Xeghborly Poems, pub- 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

lished in 1891, and made up of the poems 
that originally appeared in The Old Srvim- 
min'-Hole and many others, Mr. Riley him- 
self tells how these first poems got into print. 
"As far back into boyhood as the writer's 
memory may intelligently go/' he says, "the 
'country poet' is most pleasantly recalled. 
He was, and is, as common as the 'country 
fiddler/ and as full of good, old-fashioned 
music. Not a master of melody, indeed, but 
a poet, certainly — 

'Who, through long days of labor, 
And nights devoid of ease, 

Still heard in his soul the music 
Of wonderful melodies/ 

"And it is simply the purpose of this series 
of dialectic studies to reflect the real worth 
of this homely child of nature, and to echo 
faithfully, if possible, the faltering music of 
his song. 

"In adding to this series, as the writer has 
for many years been urged to do, and answer- 
ing as steadfast a demand of Benj. F. John- 
son's first and oldest friends, it has been 
decided that this further work of his be intro- 
duced to the reader of the volume as was the 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

old man's first work to the reader of the news- 
paper of nearly ten years ago. 

"Directly, then, referring to the Indian- 
apolis Daily Journal, — under whose manage- 
ment the writer had for some time been em- 
ployed, — from issue of date June 17, 1882, 
under editorial caption of A Boone County 
Pastoral, this article is herewith quoted: 

" 'Benj. F. Johnson, of Boone County, who 
considers the Journal a "very valubul" news- 
paper, writes to inclose us an original pa 
desiring that we kindly accept it for publica- 
tion, as "many neghbors and friends is astin' 
him to have the same struck off." 

u 'Mr. Johnson thoughtfully informs us that 
he is "no edjucated man/ 1 but that he b 
"from childhood up te] old enough to vote, 

alius wrote more ei le8i poetry, as many of 

an albun in the neghborhood can testif; 

Again, he says that he writes "from the hart 
out": and there is a toueh of genuine pathos 
in the frank avowal, "Thare is times when I 
write the tears rolls down my cheek 

" 'In all sincerity, Mr. Johnson, we are glad 
to publish the poem you send, and just as you 
have written it. That is its greatest charm. 
Its very defects compose its excellence. You 
need no better education than the one from 
which emanates The Old Swimmin'-Hole. It 
is real poetry, and all the more tender and 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

lovable for the unquestionable evidence it 
bears of having been written "from the hart 
out." The only thing we find to — but hold! 
Let us first lay the poem before the reader.' 

"Here followed the poem, The Old Swim- 
min'-Hole, entire — the editorial comment end- 
ing as follows: 

" 'The only thing now, Mr. Johnson — as we 
were about to observe — the only thing we find 
to criticize, at all relative to the poem, is 
your closing statement to the effect that "It 
was wrote to go to the tune of The Captin 
With His Whiskers!" You should not have 
told us that, O Rare Ben Johnson !' 

"A week later, in the Journal of date June 
24th, followed this additional mention of 
'Benj. F. Johnson, of Boone': 

" 'It is a pleasure for us to note that the 
publication of the poem of The Old Swimmin'- 
Hole, to which the Journal, with just pride, 
referred last week, has proved almost as great 
a pleasure to its author as to the hosts of de- 
lighted readers, who have written in its 
praise, or called personally to indorse our 
high opinion of its poetic value. We have 
just received a letter from Mr. Johnson, the 
author, inclosing us another lyrical perform- 
ance, which in many features even surpasses 

84 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

the originality and spirit of the former effort. 
Certainly the least that can be said of it is 
that it stands a thorough proof of our first as- 
sertion, that the author, though by no means 
a man of learning and profound literary at- 
tainments, is none the less a true poet and an 
artist. The letter, accompanying this later 
amaranth of blooming wildwood verse, we 
publish in its entirety, assured that Mr. John- 
son's many admirers will be charmed, as we 
have been, at the delicious glimpse he gives 
us of his inspiration, modes of study, home 
life and surroundings: 

11 'To the Editer of the Indanoplus Jurnal: 
" 'Respected Sir — The paper is here* mark- 
in* the old swimmin'-hole, my poetry which 
you seem to like so well. I joy to see it in 
print, and I thank you, hart and voice, fer 
speakin 1 of its merrits in the way in which you 
do. I am glad you thought it waa real poetry, 
as you said in your artiklr. But I make bold 
to art you what was your idy in savin' I had 
ortent of told you it went to the tone I spoke 
of in my last. I felt highly flatered tel I got 
that fur. Was it because you don't know the 
tone refered to in the letter? Er wasent 
some words spelt right er not? Still ef you 
hadent of said somepin' aginst it Ide of 
thought you was makin 1 fun. As I said be- 
fore I well know my own unedjucation, but 
I don't think that is any reason the feelin's of 
the soul is stunted in theyr growth however. 

S5 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

"Juge not less ye be juged," says The Good 
Book, and so say I, ef I thought you was 
makin' fun of the lines that I wrote and 
which you done me the onner to have printed 
off in sich fine style that I have read it over 
and over again in the paper you sent, and I 
would like to have about three more ef you 
can spare the same and state by mail what 
they will come at. All nature was in tune day 
before yisterday when your paper come to 
hand. It had ben a-raining hard fer some 
days, but the morning opened up as clear as 
a whissel. No clouds was in the sky, and the* 
air was bammy with the warm sunshine and 
the wet smell of the earth and the locus blos- 
soms and the flowrs and pennyroil and bone- 
set. I got up, the first one about the place, 
and went forth to the pleasant fields. I fed the 
stock with lavish hand and wortered them in 
merry glee, they was no bird in all the land 
no happier than me. I have jest wrote a 
verse of poetry in this letter; see ef you can 
find it. I also send you a whole poem which 
was wrote off the very day your paper come. 
I started it in the morning I have so feebly 
tride to pictur' to you and wound her up by 
suppertime, besides doin* a fare day's work 
around the place. 

" 'Ef you print this one I think you will like 
it better than the other. This ain't a sad 
poem like the other was, but you will find it 
full of careful thought. I pride myself on 

86 



JAxMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

that. I also send you 30 cents in stamps fer 
you to take your pay out of fer the other pa- 
pers I said, and also fer three more with this 
in it ef you have it printed and oblige. Ef 
you don't print this poem, keep the stamps and 
send me three more papers with the other one 
in — makin' the sum totul of six (6) papers 
altogether in full. Ever your true friend, 

Benj. F. Johnson. 
11 'X. B.— The tune of this one is The Bold 
Privateer,' 

"Here followed the poem, Thoughts fer 
the Discuraged Farmer; and here, too, fit- 
tingly ends any comment hut that which 
would appear trivial and gratuitous. 

"Simply, in briefest conclusion, the hale 

sound, artless, lovable character of Benj. F. 

Johnson remains, in the writer's mind, 
from the first, far less a fiction than a living; 
breathing, vigorous reality. So strong, in- 
deed, has his personality been made manifest, 
that many times, in visionary argument with 
the sturdy old myth over certain changes from 
the original forms of his productions, he has 
so incontinently beaten down all sugges- 
tions as to a less incongruous association of 
thoughts and words, together with protests 
against his many violations of poetic method, 
87 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 

harmony and grace, that nothing was left the 
writer but to submit to what has always 
seemed — and in truth still seems — a superior 
wisdom of dictation." 

In 1887 appeared Afterwhiles, a collection 
of some of the best of the poet's maturing 
work. In 1888 Pipes 0' Pan at Zekesbury 
was published. The next year a selection 
from Mr. Riley's poems was published in 
England under the title of Old-Fashioned 
Roses. In 1890 Rhymes of Childhood ap- 
peared, and since that time hardly a year has 
gone by without some volume by James 
Whitcomb Riley coming forth to gladden 
the hearts of his well-beloved fellow men. 
Sketches in Prose with Interluding Verses 
was published in 1891, in the same year with 
Neghborly Poems, to which reference has 
just been made. In 1892 Green Fields and 
Running BrooJcs came out, followed in 1893 
by Poems Here at Home, in 1894 by Arma- 
zindy, in 1896 by A Child-World, that poem 
so full of reminiscence of the poet's own 
childhood, in 1897 by The Rubdiydt of Doc 
Sifers, in 1898 by Child-Rhymes, in 1899 by 
Love-Lyrics, and in England a volume of se- 
lections entitled The Golden Year, in 1900 by 



JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY 

Home-Folks, in 1901 by Farm-Rhymes, in 
1902 by The Book of Joyous Children and 
An Old Sweetheart of Mine, in 1903 by His 
Pa's Romance, in 1904 by Out to Old Aunt 
Mary's and that delightful humorous poem 
of Christmas time, A Defective Santa Clans, 
and in 1905 by Songs 0' Cheer. 

In 1902 Mr. Riley received the degree of 
Master of Arts from Yale, and two years 
later that of Doctor of Letters from the Uni- 
versity of Pennsylvania. He has never mar- 
ried, but makes his home with old friends, in 
a plain substantial brick house on the far- 
famed Lockerbie Street in Indianapolis. His 
library is a most complete treasure-house of 
his warm personal literary friendships. 



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